1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator in which the operation for generating an air curtain to prevent the loss of cool air and for drawing cool air to circulate the cool air through a cool air duct are selectively performed according to the opening/closing of a door.
2. Prior Art
FIG. 1 shows a conventional refrigerator, which shows a refrigerator having a device for generating an air curtain for shutting off the opening of a cooling compartment. The refrigerator has, as shown in FIG. 1, a cabinet 10 forming a freezing compartment 21 and a fresh food compartment 22 which are partitioned from each other by a wall 27, and a freezing compartment door 24 and a fresh food compartment door 25 which open/close the freezing compartment 21 and fresh food compartment 22 respectively.
A compressor 23 is installed in a lower rear part of the cabinet 10, and an evaporator 29 for generating cool air by evaporating refrigerant supplied from the compressor 23 is installed in the rear of the freezing compartment 21. Cooling fans 19 for blowing the cool air generated by the evaporator 29 is installed at the upper side of the evaporator 29. The cooling fans 19 consist of two fans to supply the freezing compartment 21 and the fresh food compartment 22 with the cool air respectively.
A device 20 for generating an air curtain is provided in the upper side of the fresh food compartment 22. The air curtain generating device 20 comprises a cool air duct 13 provided in the upper side of the fresh food compartment 22, and a blowing fan 11 for blowing the cool air from the evaporator 29 into the cool air duct 13. The cool air duct 13 is formed with a cool air discharge port 15 at one end thereof which is opened downward at the area adjacent to an opening of the fresh food compartment 22. The cool air blown into the cool air duct 13 is discharged downward, by which the air curtain for shutting off the opening of the fresh food compartment 22 is generated.
In the fresh food compartment 22, a sensor (not shown) for sensing the opening/closing of the fresh food compartment door 25 is provided, and the blowing fan 11 is controlled to operate only when the open state of the door 25 is sensed by the sensor. Thus, the air curtain is generated only when the door 25 is open so as to prevent leakage of the cool air through the opening of the fresh food compartment 22 at the open state of the door 25.
A plurality of cool air ports 16, 18 are formed at the rear walls of the freezing compartment 21 and the fresh food compartment 22. When the door 25 is closed, the cool air from the evaporator 29 is blown by the cooling fan 19 to be supplied into the freezing compartment 21 and the fresh food compartment 22, and accordingly the foodstuffs stored in the freezing compartment 21 and the fresh food compartment 22 are frozen and refrigerated respectively.
The cool air supplied in the fresh food compartment 25 through the cool air ports 18 circulates toward the evaporator 29 through the cool air duct 13. The cool air duct 13 functions as a discharge duct for generating the air curtain when the door 25 is open and as a circulation duct for circulating the cool when the door is close.
However, such a conventional refrigerator having the air curtain generating device is burdened with the problem that the cool air having cooled the foodstuffs in the fresh food compartment 25 is not circulated smoothly, whereby the cooling efficiency in the fresh food compartment 25 becomes low. That is, since the cool air duct 13 merely provides the passage through which the cool air moves toward the evaporator 29 and does not function to circulate the cool air in an active fashion, the circulation of the cool air depends only on the blowing power of the cooling fans 19, so the supply and return of the cool air are not smoothly performed. Also, since the blowing fan 11 which is possible to blow more strongly than the cooling fan 19 is used merely for generating the air curtain, the usage of the blowing fan 11 is confined.